And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen!- And did those feet, William Blake

mandag 26. august 2013

Souls of thy father's house - Doeg the Edomite

I have been the
occasion of the death of all the souls of thy father' s house.- 1 Samuel 22:22

The beheading of priests, MS. Royal 1 D I, English Bible 3rd quarter of the 13th century

Courtesy of British Library

In the Bible and in
much of medieval hagiography there are numerous notable deaths by
beheading. St. John the Baptist - who to my knowledge is never
depicted as anything but a man of whole body - is of course the most
famous example. However, the most vividly depicted beheadings in
medieval iconography are most frequently found in hagiography. Saint
Dionysus, or St. Denys, was for instance beheaded along with his
companions Rusticus and Eleutherius, and later legends even claimed
that he, upon losing his head, picked it up and walked to the place
where he wanted to be buried, which naturally is the site of the
famous Abbey dedicated to his honour. There are other saints like
this, such as St. Nicasius of Rheims who, according to the Legenda
Aurea is reported to have continued reciting a psalm after the
top of his head was chopped off. Modern scholarship has invented the
term cephalophore for saints who carry their own heads, and the motif
is said to be of a Celtic origin. The talking head features also in
the martyrdom of St. Edmund, whose iconic shout for help, "her,
her", became a well-known element of English folklore.

These saints listed
here are all protagonist victims whose death are imitations of
Christ's passion at the hands of humanity, martyrs who confess their
faith in God as blood-witnesses. In the Old Testament, more
specifically in the 1st Book of Samuel, there are also victims who,
if not protagonists, at least sides with the protagonist, namely the
priests of Israel during the reign of Saul.

The
story is recounted in 1. Samuel 21-22, where Saul and David are at
war with each other, and Saul accuses the priests for being on the
side of David for failing to tell Saul of his escape. For this he
commands of Doeg the Edomite: Turn
thou, and fall upon the priests. Doeg obeys his orders and fell
upon the priests and slew in that day eighty-five men, performing
his misdeed with the very sword with which David earlier had beheaded
the giant Goliath. After killing 85 priests he turns to the city of
Nobe, which was the city of priests, and smote [it] with the edge
of his sword, both men and women, children, and sucklings, and ox and
ass, and sheep with the edge of the sword (1. Samuel 22:19).

It is a chilling tale of tyrannical
trespass, adding to Saul's long list of misdeeds, but to my knowledge
it is seldom depicted in medieval art (though I may be corrected on
this). However, the above image is quite a treasure, originating as
it does from the wonderful scriptorium of St. Albans, and - like the
introductory illumination - it is an image and a motif well worth
sharing and a story well worth reading.

Om meg

Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, lover of art, music and food. This blog is a mixture of things personal and scholarly and it serves as a venue for me to share things I find interesting with likeminded people.